The Amazon Acquisition of iRobot Is The “Most Dangerous And Threatening” In The Company’s History

Amazon’s intention to purchase iRobot, the developer of the Roomba vacuum cleaner, for a sum of $1.7 billion in order to increase its presence in the home devices and consumer robotics markets has been met with some opposition.
The “most dangerous, frightening” acquisition in the history of the e-commerce titan, according to Ron Knox, a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, who has called on regulators to contest the deal.
On August 5, Knox claimed in a lengthy Twitter thread that the merger would take Amazon’s most significant competitor out of the market and enable it to crush the remaining rivals through predatory pricing.

“Jeff Bezos has stated that Amazon’s goal is to achieve domination through acquisition. It would be able to accomplish this goal if it were to acquire Roomba and combine it with the massive monopoly power that is fuelled by its Prime system “he claimed. “There may be other smart vacuums available today, but after Amazon owns Roomba, there won’t be any more.”

In addition to this, Knox claims that it would provide Amazon with an enormous collection of data regarding the dimensions, shapes, and configurations of the interiors of American homes.

“The more advanced versions of Roomba collect information about your house while they clean,” says Knox. “This is done while they are cleaning.” “It is aware of the locations in which you store your furniture, as well as the dimensions of each room, and so on. Both a vacuum and a mapping device are contained within it.”

In a recent interview, Helen Greiner, who was iRobot’s co-founder as well as its previous chairman and president, stated that the benefits of iRobot’s technology would surpass any potential privacy concerns that might be raised in connection with the acquisition.

She uttered those famous words, “I don’t believe the robots are an issue to have in the house.” “They are performing such a valuable service for the general public. And I think that Amazon is interested in the concept of the smart home and making sure that all of the linked equipment is able to function cohesively.”

Greiner claims that the Amazon Alexa voice assistant can be integrated with the Roomba, and that the device has improved picture recognition capabilities as a result of hundreds of data simulations provided by Amazon Web Services.

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Greiner stated that both iRobot and Amazon have spent years working to create trust with their customers and that the acquisition may ultimately help spur greater investment in the robotics business. iRobot was founded in 2002 and Amazon was founded in 1994.

“You really need to keep an eye out. You are required to read everything and, you know, opt in when you want to and don’t opt in when you don’t want to, but you must read everything “— I quote her. However, I believe it will be interesting to watch where Amazon and iRobot can push the technology together in the future.

Amazon underlines that the information it gathers from consumers in order to develop its products and services is not used for purposes to which customers have not consented and is not shared with any third parties.

An Amazon representative was quoted in a recent interview as saying, “Protecting customer data has always been incredibly important to Amazon, and we think we’ve been very good stewards of peoples’ data across all of our businesses,” in reference to the company’s commitment to maintaining the confidentiality of its customers’ personal information. “The trust of our customers is something that we have worked extremely hard to win, and we continue to work very hard every day to maintain.”

Following the news of Amazon’s earlier purchases of Kiva Systems in 2012, Evi Technologies in 2013, Blink in 2017, and Ring in 2018, the company has now announced that it will purchase iRobot. The conclusion of the deal is contingent not only on gaining approval from the relevant regulatory authorities but also on receiving approval from iRobot shareholders.

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